Security forces have arrested a Belarusian musician for singing the Catalan song L'Estaca - "The Stake" - by Lluís Llach, accusing him of sharing "extremist material" on social media. This has been reported by the Russian opposition media outlet Mediazone, which added that the singer's name is Aleksei Petrik and that his condition following detention is unknown. The arrest took place in the city of Hrodna (on the border with Poland) by officers of the country's organized crime and corruption department (GUBOPiK), an organism accused of numerous acts of political repression, violence and torture of opponents of the regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko - who recently announced that he is running for re-election. Lukashenko has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1994 and has no intention of changing anything, as he seeks to perpetuate himself as the leader of Belarus.
The arrest of the musician took place in the street while he was singing a version of "L'Estaca", the popular protest song by Lluís Llach. In addition, the officers already had a previous recording of the detainee performing the song. The moment of the arrest was broadcast on Telegram channels, in addition to having gone viral on X. In fact, Belarusian opposition profiles claimed on social media that the singer was singing a "Spanish" song and many Catalans reacted against this: "It's Catalan". Here are the images of the arrest released on Telegram:
Lluís Llach's anthem of joint struggle, well-known in Poland and Belarus
And how did a musician in an Eastern European country come to be singing a song by the Catalan composer and activist Lluís Llach? The answer is simple. As reported on Tuesday by the European media Politico and the Polish-language Belarusian portal Wirtualna Białoruś, Llach's allegorical folk song about enslaved people who are tied to a stake, but work together to achieve their freedom, became famous in Poland during the 80s when it became the anthem of Solidarity against the Communist regime. Specifically, the song that became famous was the Polish version by singer-songwriter Jacek Kaczmarski under the title "Mury" ("walls").
Forty years later, "Mury" again became the anthem of a freedom movement in neighbouring Belarus, and the Belarusian version of the song was among the most popular at mass protests in the country in 2020. In the spring of 2021, street musicians in Minsk were arrested and received fined for performing it. Thus, "L'Estaca" has been the protest song of the Belarusians against the Lukashenko regime, of Solidarity against the Polish communist regime and of the Catalans against the Franco regime. Here's a video of the Belarusian version of Llach's theme:
And here's a rendition of the original version in Catalan, specifically, chorused by tens of thousands of Catalan voices in Madrid in March 2019 when the independence movement held a rally in the Spanish capital soon after the start of the Supreme Court trial of the leaders of the 2017 referendum and independence process.
"If we all work together, pull this way and pull that way, we can it pull down and set ourselves free," say the lyrics to Llach's song.